Media processing units typically operate in a blind fashion and do not pay attention to the processing history of media data that occurs before the media data is received. This may work in a media processing framework in which a single entity does all the media processing and encoding for a variety of target media rendering devices while a target media rendering device does all the decoding and rendering of the encoded media data. However, this blind processing does not work well (or at all) in situations where a plurality of media processing units are scattered across a diverse network or are placed in tandem (i.e. chain) and are expected to optimally perform their respective types of media processing. For example, some media data may be encoded for high performance media systems and may have to be converted to a reduced form suitable for a mobile device along a media processing chain. Accordingly, a media processing unit may unnecessarily perform a type of processing on the media data that has already been performed. For instance, a volume leveling unit performs processing on an input audio clip, irrespective of whether or not volume leveling has been previously performed on the input audio clip. As a result, the volume leveling unit performs leveling even when it is not necessary. This unnecessary processing may also cause degradation and/or the removal of specific features while rendering the media content in the media data.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.